Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Flin Flon, Manitoba

Ever spent any time near the mining city?

Flin Flon is on the list of places I want to see "someday".
Mind you, my somedays are becoming fewer, and fewer.

Met some chicks from there while in Saskatoon
And they even had teeth

wabigoon;
Good evening to you sir, I trust this finds you and yours well on this first day of February.

I recall taking a trip with my parents from our then home town of Nipawin, Saskatchewan up and over Highway 106 and ending up in Flin Flon. This would have been maybe 1974 or 75 maybe?

We took an off shoot road - the 911 I guess it must have been looking at a map - and fished for jackfish off the shore at Ballantyne Bay on Dechambault Lake. Wonderful, almost unbelievably good fishing is how I recall it.

Anyway sir, it's been years since I've had that trip or those memories wander down across my grey cells and I thank you sincerely for twigging them.

It's neat country up there in the Saskatchewan and Manitoba bush for sure. I'm not sure it's all that much different from where you go in Ontario - having never yet been there - but I'd encourage you to go if you're able.

Thanks again for the pleasant memories sir and all the best to you folks this February.

Dwayne

Thanks men, as "romance " goes, the city may well have a corner on a name for a place.

A dime pulp novel, "The Sunless City", the hero named, Josiah Flinabbaty Flonatin ,( I may have spelled the name correctly), and by chance, lore tells, the miner found the book.

As they say, "you can't make this up".

OP.......... I live in Manitoba and have been to Flin Flon and surrounding area many times. Good fishing to be had in lakes around the area. Neat country and easy to get to these days, paved all the way, up on the main highway.

As you know the mining industry has its ups and downs and that greatly affects the mining towns. Flin Flon and area is no different, but the people are resilient. I would recommend taking the drive up there, do a bit of fishing and explore the area.

Been up there many a time...

My ex wife's younger sister, got a job teaching up there after graduating College as a Speech Therapist...she took the job in Canada, because of the pay, thinking they paid better than Minnesota, but in reality it was that the Canadian Dollar was so much less...

originally she picked Dauphin to be assigned to, but someone from that town graduated with a degree in the same discipline, so she went traded spots with them, and took Flin Flon, having no idea where it even was...

1100 miles NW of Minneapolis....

the town is a trip... was build on top of rock, instead of clearing out the woods to build...so the sewer system is above ground in a lot of places...covered by insultation and what looks like wood crate....

one road in and out to there on the Manitoba Side, and Rte 106 from Saskatchewan ( worked with a gal, that was from over that way in Sask. also...) 90 miles south is the next town "The Pas"....

Winter time, the town is like the Movie, "The Birds".. all of these huge ravens come in from "the Bush" and hang all over town to feed on rubbish, and things... being more abundant than what they find in the bush....they make life hell for every little lap dog and cat... who when outside spend their life rushing from under one parked car to the next, as these ravens dive to try and kill them to eat...
darn birds are the size of a big chicken and real nasty SOBs.....

Nadeen's house was built on a big rock.. which took up half her basement.. which I thought was weird...

She ended up Marrying a Mountie from up there....his family ran a fly in fishing outfitters that had a lot of clientele from the States, especially the Midwest...

People would make it up there, and then they would drive them south of town to a couple of lakes that the Hwy passes between and they had float planes there.. they'd take off and drop down to another lake or so after a 2 minute flight.... then the Americans especially would complain about coming all that way, only to get a 2 minute flight...

the outfitter would tell them to fish that Lake for the day... if they didn't like the results, they'd fly them to any lake in Canada they wanted to go to....after the days results, they never had any complainers...

other thing I thought was 'spooky' while up there in the winter... some guys went out on Snow Mobiles and evidently got lost and ran out of fuel... the RCMP looked for them for a week... when they never found them or the snowmobiles, they figured that they had succumbed to being wolf schitt...David told me that they found the snow mobiles in the spring, but no trace of the snowmobilers...

I always enjoyed going up to Flin Flon.. especially the drive.. beautiful long drive.. a lot of wilderness, and enjoyed Lake Winnipeg to the east of the highway....

and heck the town and people were great once ya got there...

my Canadian Mountie Brother in Law was a hoot, as were his friends and family...

if you go there, enjoy the town, and local area.. and enjoy the road trip up there....simply wonderful...

( ooops, forgot to translate this into Canadian...) eh?

Then they must not have gotten there by way of living in NW PA for their childhood!

Only thing I knew about Flin Flon was it's the boyhood home of Bobby Clarke.

Thanks guys for sharing the other info.

Geno

In 1976, I was in a CYO youth group that took a June/July fishing trip to Flin Flon from Charlotte, NC. We took the church bus. What a trip! The fishing was fantastic. We started from Dauphin lake and paddled for something like 9 or 10 days with only seeing other people one time, commercial fishermen on a lake we were told was called Golden lake. We paddled from lake to lake portaging in between. Imagine two dozen idiot teenagers chasing a black bear out of camp. Moose, beaver, loon, leeches but fortunately no black flies. We were picked up by float planes at the end. My pilot was a teenage girl.

There used to be a show on Canadian TV on Sunday mornings. Must have been in the eighties. We only got 3 channels and one was out of Manitoba. The host of the show was Marty or Maury or something like that. He always talked about Flin Flon. Made a lot of jokes about it. For some reason, I've always wondered about what the town is really like.

The town itself is a dump...

people are great tho, and they have some spectacular scenery there, along with plenty of lakes with unbelievable fishing...

put it into perspective.. Flin Flon is 1100 miles NW of Minneapolis....

in Manitoba, one road in for 90 miles and the same road out for 90 miles...and that town is "The Pas" which ain't much even by Montana Standards...

The Red Green Show would fit right into life in Flin Flon....

Around family that was living up there, I use to call it Flip Flop instead...

Go for the fishing, not the "culture". The town is not scenic either, fires in recent years have left a lot of bare rock showing near town. But it is interesting country. More lakes than you'll ever have time to fish. On the SK side, Amisk lake is a real nice big lake to explore with hundreds of islands, great camping, and lots of pike and walleye. My son works out of Denare Beach fire base each summer, fighting forest fires. Denare Beach is a stones throw from FlinFlon. We enjoy the drive from SK and the visit.

Haven't lived there, but my first trip there was from the west, over the Hansen Lake Road in 1966 or 67. Been there many times since, both from the west and from the south. My wife and I make the round tour once in awhile, mostly to enjoy the scenery.

I worked west of there in Sandy Bay, SK, doing relief work for the RCMP. Flin Flon was the shopping center to head to on a day off. Lots of history up in that country. We will likely head up again this Spring or summer.

Flin Flon is where the hockey player from the Philly Flyers the great Bobby Clarke was from.